


when all the lights go out

by rosewitchx



Series: "it's a hoot that you don't get why we need this." [23]
Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Canon-Typical Violence, Found Family, Gun Violence, Iron Dad, Killjoy AU, Minor Character Death, Minor Injuries, Multi, Parent Tony Stark, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Avengers, Urban Legends, YOU KNOW ITS 20BITEEN YEAR OF THE KILLJOYS AND YOU KNOW IM THE MOST EMO BITCH IN HERE, hmmm, more tags later when i figure out... what to tag this jfdshfkdg, well is it urban if there's no actual city
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-02 09:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17262011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosewitchx/pseuds/rosewitchx
Summary: sometimes, tony wakes up with a start.sometimes, tony doesn’t even sleep at all. it’s better than memories of afghanistan, of his city vanishing under a mushroom cloud, of malibu’s remains through the tv.he’s gotten used to it.sometimes, peter wakes up with a start.OR, the killjoy au no one asked for but that i'm delivering anyway because it's 2019 and the future is now





	1. look alive, sunshine!

**Author's Note:**

> okay uhhhhh hi  
> this is the fuckin thing ive been writing for like. few months. maybe if i actually post it ill finish it up
> 
> some details to know if you're not familiar with danger days aka killjoy world  
> \- the original material is set in 2019 california after a nuclear war  
> \- a corporation (BL/ind, better living industries) took over and created a city with survivors, where everyone is forced to stick to the norm and have pills that make them "happy" and there's also androids. blind enforces order with their draculoids (brainwashed criminals) and scarecrow units (elite soldiers)  
> \- outside the city there's a desert (the zones) where the killjoys, the colorful rebels, thrive and fight blind
> 
> that's abt it i think the rest sorts itself out i hope it makes some sense  
> if you havent just. listen to [the phunkin album](https://open.spotify.com/album/2wPnKggTK3QhYAKL7Q0vvr?si=ANQqzzkvR-i-ICPQNNv7TA) its a queer anthem  
> the tags don't have everything because uh spoilers much?
> 
>  
> 
> **i hope u like...**

every day, iron man encounters dozens, if not hundreds, of lonely children in the zones. it's not unusual at all, given his occupation. he doesn't stop for more than a glance in their direction unless they're in direct danger. he can't afford to.   
  
but this time, he stops. his beaten-down motorcycle skids to a halt, and he almost rips off the mask from his face.   
  
he doesn't stop because of the kid next to the crumbling zinc home. he stops because of the twenty-seven draculoids and two SCARECROWS dead at his feet.   
  
the boy can't be older than fifteen. he's wearing a mask, red and blue, and his blood-caked hands rest by his sides. his clothes are too big for him, his hair's just too dirty, even by killjoy standards. there's a blaster resting on the floor next to him, forgotten; the child sobs quietly and doesn't look up when iron man steps closer.   
  
"kid," the man says, breathless. "kid, are you okay?"   
  
the boy shakes his head. "they came for my aunt." and then he looks up, and he recognizes him. of course he does; there's not a single killjoy near new york city (what’s left of it) that doesn't know who he is. "iron man," he says.   
  
iron man nods and puts a hand on his shoulder. "they'll come back," he says, trying his best to be comforting but failing miserably. "you need to go somewhere safe."   
  
nevermind that the kid killed this many BL/ind agents by himself. nevermind that the blood was still fresh and that the hot air already had a coppery, rotten stench.   
  
"i... i have nowhere to go." the boy is weeping now, desperately wiping at his face. he lifts his mask, for a moment, and iron man catches a glimpse of his brown eyes.   
  
this is a mistake, he tells himself already. don't do it.   
  
but he does it anyway. takes the kid with him, sitting him on the backseat and driving off into the sunset. if there's any luck, BL/ind won't track them down. iron man sure hopes they don't.   
  
nomad's gonna be pissed. he can already hear the sermon: 'we can't afford another mouth to feed, stark. we're barely eating ourselves'. or maybe: 'this isn't a safe place for him. we're, goddammit, we're always in dangerous situations, this is no place for a kid'. but then iron man will reply, always so suave and snarky, 'we can always go out more', or 'there's no safer place than with us', and he'll be inevitably backed by widow and hawkeye, and nomad will go off and be grumpy with falcon for a while before accepting his new reality.   
  
or at least, that's how iron man hopes it goes.   
  
better plan than letting the kid become a draculoid himself, or getting him hooked on solar radiation, at least.   
  
he arrives at their safehouse, a long-forgotten gas station, by sunset. the kid's exhausted. he carries him towards the store, and nomad's already scowling at him and he hasn't even entered the building.   
  
long story short: the talk goes exactly as he'd expected. widow takes the kid into a cooler room; he's burning up. hawkeye keeps watch while the witch and vision heat up some canned soup for everyone. and, of course, nomad goes to the basement to sulk with falcon.   
  
iron man doesn't have much to do, so he leaves again. says he left something behind and sprints off, wasting precious gas on unimportant things.   
  
later, when the man returns to the house, he finds a woman dead on the makeshift kitchen floor, still wearing her golden mask and showing a red-stained smile. her silver hair is dyed red, too.   
  
he takes her mask, her jacket, and closes her eyes; he leaves when he hears BL/ind coming near once more. he drops the items at the first postbox he can find, whispering a small prayer no one will ever hear.   
  
when he returns home, widow tells him the kid had felt a bit better when he was gone, but that he'd fallen asleep again. he's almost fourteen (so awfully young), and he already has an alias, spider-man, which would make iron man snort if he didn't get where it came from.   
  
but she tells him, in barely a whisper, his real name.   
  
peter.   
  
he holds it close to his heart and doesn't let it go.   


 

* * *

 

once upon a time, there was a boy.   
  
the boy was a brilliant kid. his father was a very smart man, too, and his mother was the sweetest person he'd ever meet. and although they weren't the best parents, and he was alone a lot, he wasn't lonely. he had his best friend, he had his girlfriend, he had his music and his inventions.   
  
the boy still grew up troubled. the boy was a mess, barely an excuse of a person, but it was okay. the boy's parents died. that was okay too. it wasn't like the boy was dying inside or anything.   
  
the boy became arrogant. to anyone who dared look directly at his blinding shine, the boy was a narcissistic prick. deep within, though, he was soft, and cracked; threatening to spill at any moment. he was not alone, not even then. he had his friend, his girl, his father figure. he did what he believed was okay; he built terrible weapons, he ended millions, all without knowing the severity of his actions.   
  
then, his world came tumbling down.   
  
one day, the boy was kidnapped. within his veins now thrived shrapnel from the bombs he'd designed. they asked him to make a horrific missile; they forced him to do so. but the boy wasn't a fool; he knew already what would happen to him and his fellow prisoner.   
  
so instead of building a weapon, he made a reactor. instead of making a bomb, he made a suit of armor.

“don’t waste your life.”

and he escaped.   
  
the boy, somehow, made it home to his friend, to his girl. he stopped making weapons instantly, only to discover he'd been used. by his father figure. who left him for dead after stealing the reactor from his chest. the reactor that kept the shrapnel from killing him.   
  
of course, he lived to tell the tale.   
  
and so life went. the boy was unstable, broken, and yet still kept going forward.   
  
one day, the boy was called by an old friend of his father's.   
  
the man wanted to make a group of people that could defend earth if needed. the boy was certainly one; his armor, long since improved from the original design, was even capable of flight. not only that, but there already was a threat coming.   
  
the man asked him if he wanted to be a part of it.   
  
the boy said yes.   
  
that was his first mistake in what would become a long, long list of poor decisions.   
  
the boy then met the rest of the group. a man from another time. two spies. a fellow scientist. a god? two gods.   
  
they got along well enough.   
  
not at all, actually, but then they were attacked by an actual alien army, and they had no other choice.   
  
they somehow became a family. even with the stabby god and his thunder brother, even with the giant green rage monster and the super soldier from world war two. and the boy loved every single one of them.   
  
they were the avengers. they were earth's defenders.   
  
and then new york got nuked in the middle of an alien invasion.   
  
2012 was a crazy year. it was the rise of Better Living Industries. it was the start of the wars. it was the end of life as they knew it.   
  
BL/ind took everything from the boy. it took away his suits, his ai, his inventions, even his people; all he had was the light inside his chest and the blaster between his hands.   
  
the avengers fought till the very end. they didn't stop, not until their armors had broken down and their guns had gone empty. and even then, they kept going. against BL/ind, shielding themselves and others from the radiation and the pain. their numbers grew, but it was never enough. they lost so many, too.   
  
but the boy, staring at the stars, still dreams of the day they'll save the world again.

 

* * *

 

 

spider-man takes with him a bag from his home. inside there's the gun his aunt gave him, a plastic folder filled with old photos and drawings, an old instant camera, and a change of clothes. these clothes are too big for him as well. but kid insists on wearing them. "they are my uncle's," he says. "it's all i have from him."   
  
(the brown leather jacket is, quite frankly, just ugly. and the wooly sweater isn't appropriate for long desert days.)   
  
iron man doesn't have the heart to take them from him, even if they could benefit someone else in the team, so he lets him be. besides, he's still got time to grow into them. instead he focuses on the camera. it's ancient, even by his standards. "my aunt taught me how to fix it, and we found film for it sometimes."   
  
so, two weeks into his stay, they decide to put it to the test. they head out, take a photo of the gas station. the sun's starting to vanish behind the horizon. wasp has just arrived from a supply run; she's dropping bags of canned food into the floor when she hears the click of the camera.   
  
"that's a nice one," iron man says. spider-man shakes the film; iron man doesn't tell him that doing that doesn't really help.   
  
"what are you two up to?" wasp takes off her mask. she does that often, even when it might be dangerous, but iron man appreciates it.   
  
"taking pictures! look!" spider-man rushes forward to show her, and while the film hasn't completely developed, she still smiles.   
  
"oh, that's very nice! i really like that." she pauses. "when cassie comes back, you have to show it to her. she'll love that."   
  
"uh," spider-man pauses, "okay."   
  
later, he asks iron man,  _ who's cassie? _ , and iron man tells him she's the sweetest little girl in the world, and that they have been looking for her since the bombs. the conversation dies there.   
  
and the days go by. they work on his style; what he likes to do, what he doesn't. once, hawkeye tells a story about SCARECROWs ambushing them in the night; spider-man stands up and runs out of the gas station. iron man doesn't ask him why, not after seeing the look on his face; they drop the subject and decide to work on it in the future.   
  
one morning, before anyone else is even up, iron man returns from a supply run, a grin on his face. he wakes spider-man up; the boy stares at him, still half asleep.   
  
"do you want pancakes?," iron man says. peter processes it for a while before grinning.   
  
it's the first decent meal they've had in a while. and spider-man smiles like it's a non-denominational holiday.

maybe spider-man would like waffles next, he thinks. he’s got enough flour for tomorrow too. 

he doesn’t know why yet, but the thought brings a smile to his face, too. 


	2. eight legs to the wall

it must be fate or something, because it turns out that spider-man is also a superhuman.  
  
it's nomad who discovers this; they're out on a mission, the two of them, just a simple supply run. they've just finished and now they're playing around the abandoned market they've stopped at. and then the spiderling just— starts walking up the walls.   
  
nomad comes back sporting the proudest smile any of them have seen in years. but spidey has some explaining to do, because he's still a superhuman teenager and that means he must have had an interesting upbringing, at the very least.   
  
"it was before the bombs," he says, as the witch bleaches his soft, dark hair. he scrunches up his nose at the strong smell. "i was on a school trip. to oscorp."   
  
it's funny, iron man thinks, how petty he used to be about oscorp. how none of that matters anymore, because the osborns are dead and oscorp is buried under the wreckage of new york.   
  
"i got bit by a spider."   
  
"well, at least that's better than naming yourself after an insect for no reason." falcon snickers. widow glares at him, playful.   
  
"watch it," cries ant-man, who's been hanging out on the rooftop with wasp, taking in the sunlight. an empty bottle hits falcon in the face and he scowls. wasp laughs.   
  
but underoos seems to like it, as he giggles a little and the almost imperceptible tension in the hot desert air dissipates.

red highlights his hair now. iron man won’t mention it, but he looks a lot like his aunt did, blood seeping through her hair. he doesn’t wanna ruin the mood; spidey seems to enjoy the new look.

the days in the gas station are like this. with spidey around, it's like a light has been lit, but they never knew it was dark around. and it really shows.  
  
on his fourteenth birthday, the witch bakes him a cake. it was her brother's favorite, they say. he loves it. it's tooth-rottingly sweet, incredibly moist, and he devours it in seconds. but before that, ant-man takes a picture of them.   
  
"happy birthday," iron man tells him. he's smiling, proud.   
  
peter smiles back.   
  
something like warmth fills iron man’s chest. a strange thing he hasn’t felt in ages. not since virginia, not since—

he doesn’t think much of it.

it comes around often, that feeling. he doesn’t know what to make of it. he feels— protective, over the kid. sometimes, it’s as if he’d lose the world if he lost him. sometimes, it’s as if _he_ is the world.

he doesn’t know what to make of that.

he tells himself it doesn’t matter. it’s just the kid. it doesn’t mean anything.

and the years go by.  
  
and the spiderling and the man of iron grow closer, and closer, to the point that sometimes even nomad teases them about it. and iron man builds stronger defenses, creates better jackets and stronger jeans, and his spiderkid watches and learns and improves on them.   
  
( _these are some things iron man has improved:_   
  
\- his mask, adding a light-filtering feature for his light sensitivity.   
  
\- earplugs that blast music and filter outside noises if he gets overwhelmed.   
  
\- a heater inside his jacket.   
  
\- a parachute.   
  
\- a strap for his blaster.   
  
\- sneakers and gloves that allow him to climb up walls without leaving traces.

_\- web shooters that allow him to swing around, with webs pulled from thin air._ )

on his seventeenth birthday, they're out on patrol, all alone. they look at the sunrise, the remains of new york silhouetted against the lukewarm light. golden hour.

"you know," spider-man says, as he absentmindedly throws an empty can on the air, "i don't really... remember much about back then? before the bombs, i mean."  
  
iron man catches the can swiftly, toying with his bike's engine. "well, you were very young i'm guessing. pass me the pliers?"   
  
the boy stands up and walks towards him, handing him the tool. "i was like nine. i dunno. i guess i was."   
  
iron man looks at him for a second, before shaking his head. kid's not wearing his mask. if someone came for them, that could be dangerous. "we could've prevented it," he says, facing the bike once more but not really doing anything to it. "the bombs."   
  
they stay in silence for a while.

“it was our job, you know?” virginia comes to mind. james comes to mind. his hands tremble, very slightly, for just a second. it’s obvious spider-man notices. “it’s the reason we even joined forces.”

spider-man— no, _peter_ , he looks peaceful like this in the quiet. like he's content with this life. iron man wishes he could have that. he could kill for a moment of quiet.

virginia. james. pepper. rhodey.

"no one could have stopped it," peter tells him, looking into the rising sun. "i mean— you guys are superheroes. not omnipotent gods. you couldn't have seen it coming."  
  
"it was _my_ job to see it coming. to prepare for it." the future man. the mechanic.

"no, tony." and he flinches, because no one has said his name in a long, long time, and it sounds so strange coming from a boy who's looking at him like he's worth anything at all. "it wasn't your fault."  
  
and damn it, when did this kid become so mature?   
  
"well," tony says, taking off his mask for a while. he wipes at his eyes and flashes a smile at the kid. "since it's your birthday, i guess i could tell you about back then. what do you want to know?"   
  
it's the best birthday peter's had since before the bombs. 

 

* * *

  

sometimes, tony wakes up with a start.

he wakes up, laying in bed all alone, drenched in cold sweat and struggling to breathe. catching tears before they fall. muffling his screams under the pillow. he doesn’t say a word about it.

sometimes, tony doesn’t even sleep at all. it’s better than memories of afghanistan, of his city vanishing under a mushroom cloud, of malibu’s remains through the tv.

he’s gotten used to it.

sometimes, peter wakes up with a start. tony doesn’t ask why. no one does; they’ve all got their traumas, their deep dark secrets. he doesn’t say a word about it.

sometimes, peter crawls into his bed, late at night. desert nights are cold. his bed doesn’t have the best bedsheets. but peter doesn’t mind.

he never has nightmares when he sleeps next to tony.

and tony sleeps better when he feels peter’s heartbeat.

 

* * *

 

he remembers the day the bombs fell from the sky. he remembers like it was yesterday, but he's not gonna tell tony that. he probably already knows. no need to tell him. no need to give him another heart attack.

he was with his aunt outside of town, miles away; he saw the detonation from there and remembered weeping in fear. his aunt had been so scared, too, especially after all the other bombs started going off.  
  
there was no response from uncle ben, or from harry or gwen's families. there was no response from anyone. they’d been so scared.

and then, from within the ruins, peter heard the iron man armor breeze past, and he was filled with hope again.  
  
"petey," had said his aunt then, steeling herself, "let's get out of here."   
  
it had been just the two of them for a long time. they'd slowly gotten used to raiding convenience stores and burying their grief behind their hearts, learned to avoid other raiders and the suddenly threatening force that had risen after the attack.   
  
they dressed in white and attacked at any time. they put a mask on you, and suddenly you were one of them. they took you to their city, their fortress, and the things they did to you were unspeakable of. if they knew who you were, they could find you faster.   
  
a girl at a subway station told them to wear masks. she was already making her own, bright pink like her jacket.   
  
so they made masks. they hid themselves behind plastic and face paint and fake names.   
  
he became spider-man. she became blitzkrieg. he was so young, too young, and would often be scared of the future, of BL/ind, so she wore iron man's colors and told him stories about the hero he loved. and they made it, somehow, even if it was just for a little while.   
  
and then they were ambushed.   
  
"you hide," she'd said, well aware of his powers. well aware of what they would do if they found out about him. "you hide and don't come out."   
  
and he'd done that. for a while. hidden underneath the mattress, inside a secret hole she'd carved on the floor. and then he'd heard her scream, and then a silence so terrible as their footsteps echoed through the bedroom and they reached for the bed—   
  
peter had loaded his gun and fired.   
  
(he couldn't go back)   
  
and then he'd realized what he'd done, drenched in blood, and he'd begun sobbing because he'd just killed so many people and they were dead by his feet and he'd just given himself up and they were going to find him and take him back—   
  
and then iron man, tony, he'd found him, and brought him home.   
  
(he hates lying to tony. he hates lying to everyone. he just wishes it were easier to tell the truth.)   
  
("tell us," the man in the doctor coat orders him. "just tell us the truth and you'll be saved." peter refuses. peter screams.)   
  
(he cannot ever tell the truth. he cannot be saved.)   
  
his home was with the avengers. his home was with iron man, nomad, falcon, ant-man and wasp. that was his home. and he'd bring down empires for them.   
  
(even if he's hiding until his very last breath.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next up: spider-man and the week of life-threatening situations


	3. god will save you

this week has been, well,  _ eventful,  _ to put it lightly. 

you see, the week started pretty interestingly; spider-man has been, uh, dodging this BL/ind operative for the past two days. he works alone, you see, and he’s been managing to sneak up on spider-man when he’s all alone as well. this is the third time it happens. he splits up with widow from a simple supply run, he kneels down, and then  _ BAM! _

it’s like his very being is yelling

**_L O O K  O U T !_ **

at him. 

he ducks, just barely missing the knife (?! who the hell brings a knife to a blaster fight?) and draws out his blaster in one swift movement. he thinks of iron man.  _ incapacitate. let widow handle the rest.  _ widow’s not around.  _ handle it yourself. be careful.  _ like hell. 

the ghost stands there, still, silhouetted in the dark by the bright sunlight from outside the deposit. “hey there,” spider-man says. “got lost? the clown fair is on zone 2.”

_ that was lame. god. that was  _ **_lame._ **

“okay, not talking.” the guy lungs forward and spider-man jerks back. pulls the supplies towards him with his webs, sticks to the ceiling and makes a run for the door. but the guy is real fast too, almost weirdly fast, and closes the door right on his nose, grabs him by the neck and slams him against the floor.  _ oof, ouch. my bones.  _ “come on,” he chokes out. “that was just mean.”

and then he freezes. 

every fiber of his whole being hums in understanding. 

_ i’ve seen you before,  _ they say.  _ you’re like me,  _ they say. 

the other guy seems to get it, too, but doesn’t let him go. his eyes twitch a little.  _ they’re so light,  _ spider-man thinks.  _ eyes i’ve seen before.  _

“you’re like me,” spider-man says. “aren’t you?”

the man nods, almost imperceptible. there’s a black muzzle on his mouth, as if to stop him from talking. spider-man tries to reach for it, but the hand around his neck tightens. 

“it’s okay,” he gasps out. “i’m just taking it off.”

a moment. his head should be spinning, but he knows that’s not how his body works anymore. after this, he’s gonna have bruises for a while, though. he hopes they heal before they reach home. widow might cover for him, but iron man will definitely question him and he can’t really keep secrets under pressure. 

and the man lets him go. 

slowly, peter reaches for the mask and clicks it off. “there.”

he recognizes the face from somewhere. gruffy-looking. beautiful. he knows where this guy came from, but can’t tell exactly who he is. maybe a fellow captive, he’s thinking. 

“do you know me?” the man nods. “i’m sorry, i don’t remember you. i was very little. who are you?”

the man doesn’t speak. 

“it’s okay,” he says. “you can talk to me. they won’t hear.”

he hesitates. then: “soldier.” his accent is very thick, unlike anything peter has heard around the zones, but very much something he’s heard before. 

“soldier,” peter repeats. the soldier tenses up. “you gave me your rations once.”

“you were small,” the soldier replies. 

peter rubs at his neck and sighs. if someone saw him, he’d be over. 

“they look for you.” the soldier doesn’t hold back. not anymore. “always have. they’ll catch you.”

“is that why you’re here? to bring me back?”

“yes.”

“dude.” he wants to die. not now. not like this. he hasn’t apologized. he hasn’t told the truth. “i can’t. i’m not going back. you’re not taking me.”

“i know.”

“then what are you still here for?”

“warning,” he says. “stay in the outer zones. if you breach zone 3, they’ll get you.” his hands are shaking. his face is as stoic as ever. “eyes everywhere. always listening.” it dawns on peter so suddenly it makes him almost crash. “i will forget this. don’t trust me anymore.”

“you’re disobeying orders,” peter says. 

“yes,” the soldier says. 

“why?”

he heads to the door. “you  _ are _ small,” is all he says. 

he’s vanished before widow even comes back. she only catches a glimpse of his back.  _ the winter soldier _ , she tells him, pressing cold soda cans to his neck.  _ a ghost story. a myth. if you live, you’re blessed by the winds.  _

spider-man’s throat doesn’t feel very blessed, but for the soldier, he’ll skip on going beyond zone 4 for a while.

the bruises fade and they’re not even halfway home. 

 

* * *

 

 

he wonders who he can tell. about the winter soldier. 

he knows iron man won’t let him step outside ever again if he finds out. won’t let him leave the relative safety of the gas station, won’t let him do what he has to do. what he was made for. so he’s out of the question. widow and hawkeye, as much as he likes them, would snitch on him instantly. falcon and nomad are out, too. 

he thinks, maybe the witch. but he’s scared letting her know a bit will prompt her to look deeper. she’s done it before, on accident; he’s found her awake at two in the morning, shivering outside the shelter of the gas station because of some old, repressed war memory from nomad’s mind or dreams of a cave and a car battery. 

so his only options are, well, hope and scott. 

but they’re out of town. 

so he guesses he’ll just carry the secret to his grave. 

 

* * *

 

 

“listen, spidey,” iron man says. “there’s something i want to show you.”

spider-man looks up from the table he’s hoarded; puts the broken circuit board from the radio they’d picked up earlier that day down and turns everything off. “yeah?”

“yeah, could you come check it out?”

it’s when they’ve reached iron man’s room that spider-man pauses. “no way,” he says. he stares straight ahead and his eyes seem to shine. 

iron man grins. “do you like it?”

next to tony’s bed there’s a self-standing suit of armor. a mask of seemingly seamless metal, though spider-man can hear its internal mechanisms click and turn, like clockwork. a long-sleeved top of the same material; golden webshooters that twist around the wrists. 

_ that’s for me,  _ peter thinks. 

he tries it on after iron man insists. it fits him like a glove. he loves it. 

iron man calls it the iron spider. it’s for emergencies only, he says. there’s not enough energy for it all the time. it probably only lasts a few minutes. but it’s good to have. 

he gives it to him in a bracelet. says it’ll form over his current look when it does. “try it on,” he says. 

“you sure? don’t wanna waste batteries.”

“got a new pack just for this. come on, i didn’t sneak into zone 1 for nothin’. try it on.”

spider-man puts on the bracelet and presses the tiny bump on it.

it’s not a top, he realizes. it’s a bulletproof vest. the webshooters are seamless, beautiful. the mask fills his world with a blue hue. 

iron man grins like a child on christmas. 

“perfect,” he says.

(peter doesn’t deserve any of this.)

 

* * *

 

 

there’s a bullet hell if he’s ever seen one. 

eventful week, alright. he presses his back against the barricade, blasts barely missing him. his leg hurts a lot. fuck.  _ Fuck with a capital F.  _ where’s a miracle when you need it? fuck. 

he thinks he can hear hawkeye’s blaster whistle through the air. it’s hard to tell; the draculoids are merciless today. if they don’t think of something  _ fast,  _ they’re not gonna live to see tomorrow. 

or worse. 

they’re cornered in an old shop’s backroom. the others are glued behind walls and old furniture, gasping; spider-man can see nomad’s worn-out jacket, ant-man’s gun thrown on the floor—

_ down there.  _ he looks down. scott has shrunk his way out of the mess. he’s sprinting towards him. clever. he kneels down (ouch, his leg is killing him) and picks him up. 

ant-man places a small  _ something  _ on his hand and makes it grow. it becomes heavy in his hands; it’s an explosive. there’s something scribbled on it.  _ blow em 2  _ **_hell & back_ ** . 

he pockets scott and whistles; an alert. he notices nomad’s shoulders tensing up and everyone moving back just as he flings the bomb forward. 

it explodes on impact, and he swings into the action, despite nomad’s orders to **_retreat, spider-man!_ ** . pulls out his blaster. faintly, he thinks he hears  _ something  _ through the smoke _.  _ he dismisses it just as quickly. 

at the end there’s twelve dead bodies at his feet and two bullet holes through his shoulder. he thinks he can feel tony’s hands holding him, but everything’s too hazy to tell. 

he dreams of the soldier’s back, holding his hand from behind. he dreams of bullet shells and a dead man at his feet. he dreams of a dogtag he’d seen once, just caught a glimpse of it, but doesn’t remember what it said. he dreams of his mom, one afternoon after school, helping him and gwen and bake cupcakes for harry’s surprise birthday party.

and then he wakes up. he’s in his room, he thinks, the familiar smell of old wood and burnt cotton. feels the stiff pillows under his head.

he can hear iron man yelling at someone out there. he’s  _ so  _ not dealing with that right now.

he wraps himself in uncle ben’s jacket. it’s cold, he decides, before falling asleep again. 

what a week. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next up: teenage angst
> 
> also, just a quick babey reminder, im not gonna update until like, thursday or so, bc im having my finals and im so dead lmaoooooooo lol hoped u liked this one

**Author's Note:**

> next up: spider babey!


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